


Assorted stories

by butterballturkeyofficial



Category: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - All Media Types
Genre: Drabble, Gen, just a bit of world building i guess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-29
Updated: 2019-04-29
Packaged: 2020-02-09 15:16:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,005
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18640699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/butterballturkeyofficial/pseuds/butterballturkeyofficial
Summary: It's really just a bunch of character and world driven ramblings





	Assorted stories

Toying with the slender little wires Donnie twisted, wiggled and used his voltmeter, checking connections and attempting to get everything working just so until….

Ah. There we are.

The system’s cameras come back on line and his eyes are back. Various angles of the sewers close to their home come into view and Donnie smiles to himself as the familiar landscape greets him. An odd sort of place to call home, but it was theirs nonetheless.

The funny thing about the sewers, in their cramped confinement, narrow, claustrophobic outlets and winding tunnels with dwindling light, is that they offered a peculiar and contradictory sort of freedom.

When he walked them, on his patrols looking for traces of trespassers or unexplained oddities, Donatello felt an odd sort of levity. Here he was at home in a way. Another oddity in a sea of discarded or misplaced oddities. 

Above he had reason to hide, reason to stay in shadows or above where the rest of normal society dwelled. But here? Here he was merely part of one ever changing collage of the discarded, deformed and displaced.

Modern sewer systems were an odd sort of lifeblood for society. Without proper waste management, historically many civilizations had languished in disease and death. They had a simple yet vital job to do and they did it well, day in and day out. So, as he explored them and carefully mapped them out, Donnie also found himself having a strange appreciation for something that outwardly seemed so vile but was so integral to maintaining the fabric of their civilization.

The sewers, in their own way, were the veins of the city. Not only were they the last depository for all of the city’s deluge, but a final resting place for all the things that were lost.

It was funny, really, how many things Donnie had never intended to find, or knew he needed until he happened upon it while taking a stroll with himself to get some escape from the rather cloistered area of their home. Funny how many odd bits and pieces of seemingly insignificant clutter had made him stop and give pause for thought.

In the labyrinthian passageways he found old gas lamps, tire irons, picture frames bleeding their smudged faces into the waters. He found odd bits of debris and old tech he could pick apart and try to reassemble into working condition. His pride and joy of one of these attempts was an old retro radio he had manage to parse into working condition again.

He had newer and more adept radios to work with in the lab , sure, but on long quiet nights he couldn’t help but turn on his grimiest and decrepit radio and listen to its hums and crackles as he worked.

He found cables and chips of construction materials, old glowsticks with their soft dying light, rusted tools that were unidentifiable even once their grime was swept away. He found waterlogged books, a piece of expensive jewelry here and there, and plenty of discarded street food.

He found odd bits of religious relics, more than enough crosses to build an imitation cathedral out of, what looked to be a hand carved buddha a time or two, and strand after strand of prayer beads, rosaries and little symbols that spanned nearly every religion he could name. 

Usually the tunnels were empty and devoid of others. He had even rigged an audio system to trigger should anyone draw too near to play foreboding ambient noises and distant sounds of construction to ward off anyone straggling too close.

But as mentioned, the tunnels were huge and winding and not everything he had encountered there made complete sense.

There were times where he found row after row of flickering candles, sometimes with some hastily scrawled occult symbol in the middle of them. Sometimes he found odd shrines to something of some sort. 

He found plenty of graffiti and impromptu poems scrawled on the walls, initials carved with chips of brick or stone. Once, amusingly, a message asking someone to prom.

Numerous times, he had heard voices without sources, seen a flash of something or maybe someone moving in the distance, that he never had never quite managed to track down. There were times his light source flickered without cause and a terrifying time or two, completely went out.

His brothers knew the sewers, Donnie knew they did, especially because on occasion while exploring he had come across either his brothers or something that definitely belonged to them. He was aware of Raph’s little stash cubbies to squirrel things away that Leo wouldn’t quite approve of, and an alcove found and completely covered with art done entirely by Mikey.

Their youngest brother had never mentioned it, and Donnie had never outed his secret, or even alerted him of his discovery. It was a thing for Mikey and he left it that way.

Leo left few traces in the tunnels, the best Donnie had found was a quiet area where his eldest brother read or meditated when their home was too chaotic. Leo was always good about cleaning up after himself, whatever he brought with him, he also took home. Even the little burned up matches he had used to light his candles.

But for the most part, Don knew, the deepest recesses of the sewers were his, and he held a quiet relish in that. It was just one more thing on a long list of items that Donnie had a deeper, more intricate understanding of than his brothers.

However, what set this one apart was in part the sentimental weight Donnie had assigned to it. To him, the sewers were merely an extension of their home. A bit of the lair radiating outwards to danker and more unfamiliar depths. 

But to him they were still home and so when Donnie stalked the moldering corridors late into the night, it was with an odd sort of pleasure in escaping ennui into something familiar yet unknown, constant yet everchanging.


End file.
